The article argues as corporate and government money for the three "big" international organizations that influence the world’s conservation agenda has increased, their programs have been marked by growing conflicts of interest — and neglect of the indigenous peoples whose land they are in business to protect. Note the editor's comment in encouraging repsonses from all sides in this discussion.

AbstractIn the past, the tribal decision making process relied upon a valuable set of cultural and ecological knowledge to make resource management decisions. More recently, some American Indian tribes have begun developing Integrated Resource Management Plans in an attempt to make informed resource management decisions. The premise of this paper is that it would be important to incorporate traditional cultural and ecological knowledge into the Integrated Resource Management Planning process. Due to the spatial nature of traditional cultural and ecological knowledge, Geographic Information System (GIS) technology can facilitate the inclusion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the tribal decision making process.